A new engine and a new development team has re-energised Konami’s series,
writes Chris Schilling.

In recent years, being a fan of Pro Evolution Soccer has been a little like being a member of an increasingly exclusive club with a bizarre and arcane set of rules for entry. Once inside, you can enjoy a rich atmosphere, plush furnishings, and the finest cocktail menus, but increasingly punters are heading to venues that don’t demand they wear purple suede loafers to get in.

Which is to say that there are usually plenty of foibles to forgive if you want to get the best from PES. And if you can look past these issues – the inconsistent AI, the stilted animations, the curious ball physics – you’re usually guaranteed a good time. Last year’s game showed real signs of improvement after a generation spent in the shadow of rival FIFA; again, it had problems, but it played a neat passing game, the ball fair zipping across the turf from man to man.

Yet it was clear the foundations were creaking a little: Konami had taken the old engine as far as it could go. And so this year’s game promised a fresh start, a new beginning with a new team in charge, and a brand new game engine to provide a more authentic simulation: better physics, more realistic animation, a greater sense of weight.

All those are present and correct in PES 2014, but there are casualties as a result. The pace has dropped, the responsiveness likewise: your early matches will see you jab the button to flick the ball on and often wait perhaps a full second before the player does as he’s told. It’s as if, rather than controlling the player directly, you’re controlling the messages sent from brain to foot – and as we all know, footballers aren’t necessarily blessed with great intelligence. Perhaps that explains the sluggishness, why Franck Ribery decides not to play the ball through to the overlapping Tony Kroos, instead opting to roll the ball back and forth under his feet, extend his hand to hold off an incoming defender, and to backheel a through-ball only when Kroos’s run has taken him offside.

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It sounds like a ruinous change for the worse, but a few games in you’ll begin to get a handle on what PES is now asking of you. It’s a more measured brand of football; one that requires you to wriggle free from markers, to move your opposition around to create space, to take your time to make that killer ball. It’s not exactly intuitive, but a series of thorough tutorials patiently talk you through the basics and more advanced skills. Mastering the manually controlled through-ball will take several hours, but the first time you send a striker clear of the last man with a slide-rule pass makes the investment worthwhile.

After that early awkwardness, it begins to feel a little less capricious. You’ll learn to anticipate when flick-ons are possible and when you’ll have to hold off your marker and delay the ball. You’ll instinctively know whether you can cushion the ball or whether you’re better laying it off; whether you can squeeze past a defender as you hug the byline, or whether you’ll have to cut back or inside. It helps no end that the animation is that much more fluid – no longer will you see jarringly jerky transitions as your player shifts their weight. Combined with the more realistic physics of both players and ball, it’s much less ‘gamey’ than before.

A few contrivances remain, however. Defenders play a suspiciously high line, and when you break the offside trap, your opponent will always get a burst of pace to catch up with attackers racing clear. Meanwhile, the tangible delay between pressing the shot button and your player hitting the ball goalwards more often than not allows a last-ditch tackle to deny you. When you do get a shot away, as if to compensate for how difficult that can be, you’ll find goalkeepers in generous mood, palming daisy-cutters into their own net, and struggling with lofted shots in particular. The sense of connection and weight on each shot makes 25-yard screamers particularly satisfying, though you’d feel happier if they were flying past more capable ‘keepers.

Still, it captures that big game atmosphere better than before. Its rival might have the licences and a definite edge when it comes to player likenesses, but the lighting here is superior to FIFA’s garish, ITV-coverage look, while a noisy, reactive crowd lets out a hearty roar when you score. This feeds into the new ‘heart’ system, whereby players can be lifted or overawed by the occasion, seemingly gaining that extra yard of pace when they’re playing well, or misplacing passes under pressure. A piece of sublime skill or a well-taken goal can give a team real momentum, making seemingly impossible comebacks all the more achievable.

True, its slower pace may mean it’s more fun to play as Pirlo than Messi these days, but if PES has lost a little of its former flamboyance, it’s a more robust, complete game as a result. It’s likely to be another year before we really see the fruits of Konami’s transition to the Fox engine, but for a first season under new management, PES 2014 comes alarmingly close to redefining the beautiful game.